Beverley Uranium Mine

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The Beverley uranium mine is an Australian mining company Heath Gate Resources, a subsidiary of the American company General Atomics.

Geography

The mining area is located in the northern part of the Australian state of South Australia and 35 km north- west of Lake Frome.

History

The deposit was discovered in 1969. The Government of South Australia in 1982 refused their consent for the construction of this mine, but in March 1999 the government announced its opposition to and in 1999 construction began. The production was recorded in January 2001.

With the four Aboriginal clans that belong to the tribe of Adnyamathanha and which owns the land on which the Beverley uranium mine was built, agreed the mining company in September 1998, an annual payment whose level depends to a large extent from the uranium price. At the time, that was a sum of about $ 1 million.

Deposit

It is a sandstone deposit (measured as uranium (V, VI ) oxide U3O8 ) at a depth between 100 m and 130 m with about 0.18 % uranium oxide. Because of low uranium content, it can be economically removed only with the in-situ method. The needed for this aquifer at that depth is not associated with the Great Artesian Basin, located about 150 m deeper, so that there introduced substances can not pollute the important groundwater basin. However, environmentalists have objected to this statement.

Ore mining and processing

The uranium mine has a capacity of up to 1180 tons per year Triuranoktoxid, which were 418 t in 2010 promoted.

Water is pumped from the aquifer, mixed with oxidant and sulfuric acid and pumped at a different location. Underground water flows through the sandstone oilfield to Abpumpstelle and thereby dissolves the ore from the rock. Once out of the water pumped above ground, the ore was separated, it is again mixed with oxidizing agents, brought to the desired pH of 2 to 3 and then pumped down again.